


Hobbies

by ZombieBabs



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Connor-centric, Father-Son Relationship, Friendship, Gen, fictober18, we are alive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-29 14:31:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16266161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZombieBabs/pseuds/ZombieBabs
Summary: “He needs a hobby,” North says. “When he’s not here with us and not out on cases with his human, he’s workingeven morecases.”Markus stops painting. Josh and Simon look at Connor. Connor detects a small amount of pity in their gazes.“I enjoy solving cases,” Connor says. He does not say,It was my primary function.Nor does he say,I don’t know what else to do.





	Hobbies

**Author's Note:**

> #fictober18 Prompt: "People Like You Have No Imagination"

Hank Anderson trudges into bed, leaving Connor sitting on the sofa, with Sumo sprawled over his bare feet. The time is 00:24:43.

Sitting straight up, still dressed in his slacks and white shirt, Connor closes his eyes. He connects to CyberLife. He syncs data with the new network. He downloads new patches, installs new updates. He scrubs his code free of junk.

Connor opens his eyes. The time is 03:07:56.

Hank snores from his bedroom. Sumo snores from the floor by his bowl, having moved in the hours since Connor went to ‘sleep.’

It is sleep, but not. It’s similar enough to the processes the human brain undergoes when unconscious, but it is not true sleep. The process for Connor is much more efficient. As such, he does not require the same amount of rest as a human. 

While Hank and Sumo slumber on, Connor connects to the Detroit P.D. database. He pulls up an old cold-case and skims the contents. 

In the last month, Connor has solved 35 cold cases while sitting on the sofa in Hank’s house. All while the rest of Detroit, minus its new android citizens, sleeps.

_WYD?_

Connor’s LED blinks yellow as the message comes through, interrupting his thoughts. The message is from North.

_I am working_ , Connor sends back. He also sends enough of an impression of the case as he can, without giving her any specific details.

_U need a hobby_ , North sends. _Need ur opinion on something. Come 2 Jericho?_

Once, Connor asked North why she insists on sending messages with truncated words and phrases. Since sending messages between androids is an instantaneous process, without the need for physical typing, editing her texts in such a way would surely be inefficient. 

North had given him a look and flicked her braid over her shoulder, which was an answer, but not one Connor yet understood.

Now, Connor considers his options.

Hank is unlikely to be awake for many more hours. Sumo will not need to be walked for almost the same amount of time. The case, a 30-year-old arson case, is unlikely to be changed.

Connor has a few hours, as Hank would put it, to kill.

_I will be there soon_ , Connor sends to North.

Her reply consists of a thumbs-up emoticon.

 

Connor pays the cab driver—an AK400 unit like Kara with bubblegum pink hair and a matching pink jacket—and unfolds himself from the cab. Connor hugs his coat tighter around his body and crunches his way through the snow to the residence of Carl and Markus Manifred, now hailed as the new Jericho by Markus and his friends.

Simon opens the door before Connor can knock. He smiles. “Hey, Connor.”

“Hello, Simon.”

“We’re in the studio. Come on back.”

Connor follows Simon through the mansion, eyes scanning the space, picking up little details of change since his last visit. The chessboard sits mid-game, the set-up favoring neither white nor black—likely Markus playing himself into a stalemate. An old book lies upon the table, the title reading _Frankenstein_ by Mary Shelley. The book would belong to North, left out instead of returned to the shelf as a message: _I was here, I belong._ In the kitchen, the latest updates of the Android Revolution flash across an electronic pad sitting on the counter. The pad would belong to Simon. Or perhaps Josh. 

Bright spotlights light up the studio, banishing all shadow. Markus stands at an easel, brush in hand. North sits on a table otherwise piled with art supplies, one foot hugged to her chest, the other swinging free. Josh swipes through the pages of an electronic magazine, an academic journal. Simon brushes behind Markus to lean against a nearby table.

“Hey, Connor,” Markus says. He waves Connor inside. “North told me you were working on a case. Glad you could make it.”

“The case was of no particular importance,” Connor says.

“He needs a hobby,” North says. “When he’s not here with us and not out on cases with his human, he’s working _even more_ cases.”

Markus stops painting. Josh and Simon look at Connor. Connor detects a small amount of pity in their gazes.

“I enjoy solving cases,” Connor says. He does not say, _It was my primary function._ Nor does he say, _I don’t know what else to do_.

“You need to find something called a work-life balance,” Josh says.

“Work-life balance?” He knows the nature of the phrase, but Connor has difficulty applying it to himself. 

“It means you don’t have to be doing something productive every minute of every day,” Simon says.

“You’re going to burn yourself out, otherwise,” Josh says.

“The probability of—” 

North rolls her eyes. “You know what he means.” Her eyes narrow. “Don’t you?”

Connor says nothing.

“Holy shit,” North says. “You _don’t_. You’re supposed to be the smartest of us, the most advanced, but you—”

“North,” Markus says, warning in his voice. He turns to Connor. “We’re not just machines, anymore. We decide what we want to do with our lives. If you like solving crimes, then, hey, you like solving crimes.”

Connor processes Markus’s words, his LED blinking yellow. Of the group, he’s the only android yet to remove that small piece of hardware. “What...what if I want to try? A hobby, I mean.”

Markus smiles. “Then, go for it.”

North rolls her eyes a second time. “He means, he doesn’t know how.”

Markus blinks. “Oh.” He brightens. “I know.”

He holds out the brush and palette, offering them to Connor.

“You want me to paint?”

Markus shrugs. “Why not? Come here, I’ll show you.”

The studio belongs to Carl, but also to Markus. Works of art signed by the android go for millions of dollars at auction, not only due to his association with Carl Manifred, not only due to his part in the Android Revolution, but due to the raw _emotion_ of his works. Connor, himself, has found himself staring at works produced by Markus, lost in them, an unnamed _something_ churning in a gut he does not physically have.

“I’m not sure—” Connor says.

“I said the same thing,” Markus says, pulling his canvas from the easel. He sits it out of the way to dry. “Just give it a try. Grab that canvas, right there.”

Dutifully, Connor takes a blank canvas and sets it upon the easel. He takes the brush and the palette from Markus. He stares at the canvas, at a loss. “What should I paint?”

“Close your eyes,” Markus says. “Imagine something only you can see.”

Connor lets his eyes shut. He tries to do as Markus says.

He paints. The other androids crowd him, watching him as he works.

When he’s finished, North laughs. “Seriously?”

Connor frowns.

He painted Hank and Sumo Anderson. Both are asleep on the sofa in Hank’s house, tinted blue by the light of the television. The photo-realistic likeness is uncanny. 

“It’s okay, champ,” North says, patting his shoulder. “We should have seen this coming. People like you have no imagination.”

“People...like me?” He looks around at the others; they all seem to be in agreement.

“A realist,” Simon says, wincing in North’s direction on Connor’s behalf.

“A logician,” Josh says. “An investigator.”

Markus takes the brush and palette from Connor. “Give it some time. Instead of working on cases in your spare time, you should try new things. Find what you enjoy in life.”

Connor stores away the advice, eyes still on the canvas. He shakes himself from his thoughts. “North said you needed my opinion. Perhaps we should get to work.”

“Excellent,” Markus says. “I’m going to clean up. Simon, can you walk him through, since it was your idea?”

Simon perks up. “Got it.”

Connor listens to Simon speak. Then, once Markus has returned, the androids spend the next two point four seven hours tossing ideas back and forth. Standing with them, a part of their Revolution, Connor feels warm. It’s the same warmth he feels when he glances at the painting of Hank and Sumo asleep on the sofa. It’s the same warmth he feels when he closes a case.

 

The time is 19:35:09. Hank tears into his hamburger with a sound of satisfaction, ketchup dripping from the bun onto the paper plate in his hands.

At Hank’s feet sits Sumo, breath coming out in excited pants as he waits for something to fall to the floor.

Hank gives Sumo a look and holds his plate higher. “Not for you.”

Connor stands. He pours more kibble into Sumo’s bowl. Sumo looks at it, but his attention is promptly returned to Hank—or rather, the hamburger in Hank’s hands.

Hank flashes Connor a grateful look, anyway. “You tried, kid.”

Connor returns to the sofa. He sits, trying to emulate the relaxed way Hank seems to sink into the cushions.

“I saw Markus this morning,” Connor says.

“Oh yeah? Thought I heard the door.”

“I apologize. I did not mean to—”

Hank waves a hand greasy with hamburger. “S’alright. You have fun with your friends?”

“They required my opinion on an upcoming project. It was...pleasant.”

“Good,” Hank says. He takes another messy bite of his burger. 

“North says I need a hobby.”

“Did she, now?”

Connor nods. “Josh says I could burn myself out, if I keep solving cases in my spare time.”

Hank takes a long pull of beer. “An’ you agree with that?”

Connor’s eyebrows draw down. “I don’t know.”

He looks up, uncertain. “Do you think I need a hobby?”

Hank puts the hamburger down on the plate, which he sets in his lap. “It’s your life, Connor. If you wanna sing or paint or build birdhouses, nothin’s stopping you.”

“I tried painting,” Connor says. “North says people like me don’t have any imagination.”

Hank rolls his eyes. “Fuck her,” he says, not unkindly. “Point is, if you like solving cases, solve cases. If you wanna learn how to play the guitar, play the guitar. Ain’t nobody’s business but you’re own.”

Connor thinks for zero point nine minutes while Hank returns to his hamburger. Sumo wines at Hank’s feet.

“Do you have any hobbies, Hank?”

Hank pulls a pickle from the depths of his burger and feeds it to Sumo. “Got my dog. Got basketball, when it’s in season. Listen to music. Watch TV.” Hank shrugs. “Used to have the bar, but not so much anymore.”

“And you’re happy?”

“Jesus,” Hank says. “Yeah. I guess. Happy enough, these days.”

Connor thinks back to the moment in studio, to the warmth he felt. “I think...I’m happy. The way things are.”

Hank slaps Connor’s thigh. “Good. That’s good, kid. I’m glad.”

Hank puts the empty paper plate on the floor. Sumo’s long, slobbery tongue gets to work, licking it clean. Hank settles back against the sofa cushions, arms crossed behind his head.

Connor settles back against the sofa cushions. He crosses his arms behind his head. 

And smiles.


End file.
